hi!

I’m Afra — a writer working between London and the California Bay Area. I’m currently a fellow with the

Institute. This Substack is my main home and I write independently. For six years, I worked in Silicon Valley across AI news and crypto. In March 2025, I finally surrendered to a childhood dream and took the leap into full-time writing.

I’m drawn to the tangled worlds of technology, China, and Silicon Valley. Here’s what I explore most often:

China ↔ Silicon Valley: how “China tech” influences and shapes the Valley and, more broadly, Western society, with a focus on the US–China AI rivalry.
Deep contextual translation: making sense of China’s tech interiority for global audiences.
Progress, stagnation, accelerationism: and how AI’s paradigm shifts are re-wiring the future.

Some of my most widely read pieces include Topology of “China AI”, Reading Abundance from China, and China OS vs. America OS. Personally, I’m most proud of The Clock and the Rocket, UK’s Progress Ambivalence, The Wink from Tech Billboards—I hope you’ll give them a read.

If you enjoy my work, consider pledging or becoming a paid subscriber. I promised myself I’d write 50 pieces before worrying what comes next—and your support makes everything to me.

About Me

Beyond this newsletter, I host CyberPink 疲惫娇娃, a Chinese-language podcast that dives into the US–China zeitgeist, culture, and society—through the lens of pop culture. We’ve released more than 70 episodes. I am also a part of Baihua, a Chinese-language podcast incubator and community. At heart, I am, and always will be, a cultural in-betweener and part of the Chinese diaspora. Writing in English is freeing, but expressing myself in Chinese feels essential. My Chinese-language work, which I see as community service, often carries a more rudimentary, unfiltered, soulful version of me, and I see it running in parallel with my English writing.

Previously, I was managing editor and led content growth at NewsBreak (an AI-driven local news app) and worked at SmartNews, where I absorbed and applied the Silicon Valley playbook of growth hacking, retention strategy, user studies, and more. My time in crypto (mostly Ethereum) were spent building hacker houses, organizing developer communities, creating tech events, and implementing go-to-market strategies. I’m a firm believer in the power of decentralized technology, d/acc, privacy, and open-source, and continue to see myself as deeply embedded in both the tech and crypto communities.

I studied international history and media studies at Columbia University, the London School of Economics, and UC Irvine.

I’m also actively exploring fellowship opportunities and happy to contribute to tech outlets. You can reach me at afrazhaowang@gmail.com. You can find my personal website here (afra.work) and follow me on X.

writing, talks, invited podcasts:

“Silicon Valley Embraces 996 Work Culture: What Does America’s “China Anxiety” Reveal?” (in Chinese) Podcast by Bumingbai, hosted by NYT columnist Yuan Li, 2025

Sinocism Live, “Dispatches from China,” podcast, 2025

“Alibaba Gets AGI-pilled,” ChinaTalk, 2025

“Genes for Memes,” Reboot, 2025

“Decoding the Chinese Computer,” Sixth Tone, 2025

“Reading Abundance from China,” ChinaTalk, 2025

“DeepSeek and Destiny: A National Vibe Shift,“ ChinaTalk, 2025

“On Typing Chinese,” Reboot, 2025

Is Elon Musk the antihero of Silicon Valley? (in Chinese) 新新人类 Pixel Perfect podcast, 2024

“Crypto’s Trump Card” (in Chinese) 美轮美换 The American Roulette podcast, 2025

“Silicon Valley’s Political Shift” (in Chinese) 美轮美换 The American Roulette podcast, 2024

Panel “From Western Liberalism to World Liberalism” featuring Vitalik Buterin and Bruno Maçães at DevCon, Ethereum Foundation’s largest annual conference, 2024

“Secondhand Liberalism: A Story of Microdosing Internet Freedom,” talk at DevCon, Ethereum Foundation, 2024

China is a Process: Understanding the Chinese Crypto Diaspora Community, The Blockchain Socialist podcast, 2024

“The tale of GameStop memestock” (in Chinese) 硅谷早知道 What’s Next podcast, 2022

“Podcast as a verb, a lifestyle, and a community” Talk at Google’s Shanghai office, 2022